


Carlos Forgot, But It Turned Out Okay In The End

by KathrynStar (MKJ001)



Series: Night Vale with the Ramirez's [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Alex(Carlos's sister) is MTF, Attempt at Humor, Bisexual Female Character, Carlos is a Good Boyfriend, Carlos is a good brother, Carlos's family all love Cecil to bits, Carlos's family are all my OC's, Carlos's family comes to visit, Cecil Is a Good Boyfriend, Cecil is probably mostly human, Cecil's Fashion Sense, Fairly bad attempts at Spanish, Mild Language, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post Ep 70 A and B, Trans Character, Typical Night Vale Weirdness, Whole family of dorks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-13 22:31:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4539939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MKJ001/pseuds/KathrynStar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't that Carlos Ramirez was exceedingly forgetful, he had a doctorate for crying out loud. It was just that in the flurry of events after his return from the Desert Otherworld, he had completely forgotten that he had called and told his family to come visit.<br/>At least until he got the call that they would be in Night Vale within the hour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sometimes Even Scientists Forget Things

**Author's Note:**

> I'm such a sucker for stories that have Carlos's family in them that I decided to give it a shot myself. First attempt at writing a story for Night Vale so hopefully this will end well.  
> I had to use Google Translate for the Spanish so if you see any mistakes, please let me know!
> 
> You can find Maria on tumblr here- http://mariatheintern.tumblr.com/

Maybe Night Vale or the beings that certainly were not angels, or any of the powers that be had felt sorry for everything that it’s Voice and it favorite scientist had gone through in the past year.

Or maybe it was just a Night Vale thing again.

Either way, not even a week had passed after Carlos's return to Night Vale before Cecil and Carlos woke up in their bed in a room that was both theirs and not. It was their furniture, their, read Cecil’s, knickknacks, their pictures and their clothes but it was not the room they had fallen asleep in.

In fact, after the couples initial shock (Carlos’s shock, Cecil’s mild and brief surprise) subsided, they discovered they were in a house in the Desert Creek housing development. It was a two floored home with three other bedrooms, two bathrooms, there was a welcome message from the Faceless Old Woman written in ketchup in the kitchen and it was all completely furnished to boot.

It had been a week, and Cecil and Carlos were mostly settled in, they were still getting used to the space, going from a two bedroom apartment to a behemoth of a house would so that, but they liked the extra elbow room, they liked it a lot in fact.

Carlos’s T-shirt had been lost ages ago, as was Cecil’s, although that too counted as Carlos’s T-shirt. The pair had been lazily making out on the couch for well over an hour with the TV playing in the background, not paying attention to any of their surroundings. At the moment, as the positions had changed quite bit through much giggling and limb adjustments, Carlos had Cecil on top of him, enjoying the warmth and the weight of his boyfriend as kisses were placed on his neck.

Well, enjoying it until his phone rang.

“Hang on, Cec,” Carlos said, stretching out to grab the phone off the coffee table. He glanced at the ID before accepting the call.

“Hola Maria,”

Cecil detangled from Carlos’s grasp to give him time to talk to the youngest of his sisters, opting to go see if he could figure out what to eat for the night.

“Maria, please tell me you are joking,” Carlos’s voiced sounded slightly strained, before nearly shouting in reply to whatever Maria had said, “¿Qué quiere decir usted estará aquí en una hora?”

Cecil wasn’t able to keep up with the rest of the conversation due to the very rapid Spanish coming from his boyfriend.

Carlos walking into the kitchen a few minutes later, hand carding through his hair in frustration, “Yeah, okay, si, Maria its fine. Hasta pronto.” 

“So?” Cecil raised his eyebrows in anticipation.

Carlos sighed loudly, “I sort of forgot that I had called my family after I got back and that I invited them to come visit. They’ll be here in an hour.”

There was a brief silence before Cecil looked between them, “We have to put on clothes don’t we?”

“Sadly, yes, querido.” Carlos kissed Cecil on the forehead quickly.


	2. In which Carlos Worries While Cooking And The Family Decends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference:  
> Rosa and Miguel- the Parents  
> Isabelle and Alex- Twins, 27, Carlo's older younger sisters  
> Maria- 21, Carlos's youngest sister  
> Lukas- Isabelle's husband  
> Lucinda and Jacob- 7, Isa and Lukas's kids

Cecil took care of general house cleaning after they got dressed, while Carlos quickly began making dinner, an enchilada recipe that was from his mother. 

Luckily, a week and a half is not a long time to accumulate much dust or trash aside from a few extra spiders that, upon Cecil’s kind request, were fine with being a bit scarce while they had visitors so Cecil now sat at the kitchen island on a stool watching Carlos bustle about.

“For the interest of the Sheriff’s Secret Police, who exactly is coming?”

Carlos sighed (he’d done that a lot in the last 45 minutes), “My parents, Isabelle and Lukas plus their two kids, Alex, and Maria. They’ll probably be here a week.”

Both men saw their SSP house officer offer a thumbs up from the window in thanks for the information.

“I really shouldn’t be freaking out about this as much as I am…” Carlos muttered after a few minutes of silence. 

“It’ll be okay, dear Carlos,” Cecil said. “Plus, I can’t wait to meet your family.”

That made Carlos laugh, “They’ll love you, probably almost as much as I do.” 

“Well, that is certainly promising,” 

Carlos leaned across the island to capture Cecil’s lip with his own only to groan when he heard a chorus of car doors slamming.

“Let’s go say hi,” Cecil chirped, grabbing Carlos’s hand to pull him towards the door.

Upon opening the front door they were greeted with a shout of “Tio Carlos!” as two children launched themselves into Carlos’s arms.

“Lucinda, Jacob, you’ve both gotten so big!”

“You haven’t seen them in three years, Carlito, what do you expect?”

“Maria, I am 13 years older than you,” Carlos rolled his eyes at the youngest of his sisters, though he was smiling brightly.

“Don’t care, holy shitake mushrooms, is your boyfriend wearing furry pants and a floral tank top?”

“And galaxy high heels! I need them in my life!” Alex exclaimed happily. “Cecil, honey, let me into your closet.”

“Ignore them, dear,” Rosa Ramirez stated with a smile as she handed her suitcase off to her son, “Gracias, hijo.”

“De nada, Mama,” Carlos said, kissing his mother on the cheek before grabbing another bag from his father to take inside.

“Uh, it’s no problem, Mrs. Ramirez, I really don’t mind.” Cecil chimed in as he watched the three cars be unloaded from the porch as he wasn’t quite sure what to do.

“Call me Rosa or Mama, you are part of this familia now.” Rosa patted him on the shoulder as she passed by him to enter the house.

“If he’s part of the family, he can help me unload my car of Alex’s six bags.” Maria cast an annoyed look to the sister that was currently pulling Lucinda’s luggage out of a different car.

“I need a lot of stuff, Maria, not all of us can live in sweatpants in t-shirts,” Alex responded.

“You can if you are a broke college student,”

“Girls!” Carlos and Miguel shouted in unison, breaking up the argument with practiced ease.

“Sorry!” 

Carlos dropped his head onto Cecil’s shoulder, “I didn’t miss that. You should have seen them when they were younger.”

“Abby and I didn’t really argue much…I don’t think. I can’t really remember.”

“Oi, love birds, come help me! I’m hungry and I can smell Ma’s enchilada’s from here!” Maria called, hands on her hips, still standing by her car.

Cecil giggled at the exasperated sighed Carlos gave, “Alright hold on.”

“I like them a lot.” Cecil said quietly, already enjoying the noise coming from the house.

“They love you already, babe, just like I said they would.


	3. Of Observations and Dinner Conversations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like family dynamics okay?

Maybe it was the reporter in him, but Cecil liked watching people, and he knew for a fact that he would find some time in his broadcast tomorrow evening to talk about how the Ramirez family interacted.

The way Rosa quickly took over the kitchen to finish making dinner with Carlos’s help as they spoke quietly to each other in a mixture of English and Spanish.

The way Maria and Alex could be heard from upstairs as they continued to argue over closet space and sides of the bed and anything else that could be argued about the room they were going to share.

The way that Isabelle and Lukas looked at each other like had only just fallen in love instead of been married for 5+ years with two seven year olds.

The way Miguel happily played a game of the twins own creation but was still able to keep an eye on his wife and son in the kitchen and an ear out for Alex and Maria’s argument to need someone to step in.

Cecil was able to see the similarities and the differences between them all (He finally knew that Carlos got his eyes, ears, and smile from his mother but the rest was his father). He liked the noise and the shouting and the laughter and finally understanding that this was a house for a lot more people than currently living in it full time.

“Sweetie, you in there?”

“Huh?” Cecil blinked at Carlos from where he had perched himself cross-legged on the back of sofa. “Sorry, I was thinking about my show tomorrow night.”

“Oh? Anything good?” 

“Maybe,” Cecil grinned broadly, “You’ll just have to listen in won’t you?”

“I guess so,” Carlos leaned forward, knee going into the sofa cushion, to kiss Cecil. Their lips had barely just slid together when…

“Aw, you two are adorable.” Maria cooed from the bottom of the stairs. “Cecil, fair warning, Alex has found her way into your closet.”

“So long as she doesn’t mess with the scorpions in the back she’ll be fine.” Cecil said cheerfully. Jacob chose that moment to appear at the top of the stairs.

“Tio Carlos, Tio Cecil! Come help me defeat the dragon holding Princess Lucinda hostage! I need another knight and a prince!” Jacob called down urgently.

“What do you say, querido, want to go rescue a princess from a dragon?”

“So long as that dragon doesn’t have five heads, I’d be happy to.”

By the time Rosa and Isabelle called everyone for dinner, Princess Lucinda had been rescued from the Dragon Miguel after a clever diversion from the knights Jacob and Carlos so that the brave Prince Cecil could swoop in save the day.

“Carlos, these are almost as good as Ma’s. How did you manage that?” Alex asked after shoving nearly half an enchilada down her throat.

“Because I like cooking and she gave me the recipe?” Carlos supplied with raised eyebrows. 

“Mama! I begged you for this recipe when I moved out!” Isabelle laughed out. 

“One child per family, hija, and your brother beat you to it by nearly a decade.” 

“As to stop recipe induced murder, Cecil, I just want to say your tattoos are so cool,” Maria interjected.

“Oh thank you!” Cecil glanced down at his ink covered arms, “I just kind of woke up with most of them.”

Carlos froze for a moment as he watched the expressions of his family, the silence broken by Lukas’s snort. 

“That would make things a whole lot easier wouldn’t it?” He joked, getting a chuckle out of everyone else.

The look shared between the two who counted Night Vale as home said, in simple terms, ‘Maybe this will be easier than anticipated.’


	4. More Information is Learned as the First Day Ends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I totally meant to write this sooner but... It's here now right?

“So, Carlos tells us you work in radio, Cecil.” Miguel said, an hour or maybe minutes later over coffee in the living room.

“I’m the Voice of Night Vale actually,” Cecil stated proudly from his place curled contently in Carlos’s lap. “I have at least one show every day, except on big news day where I have to be on air all day to make sure civilian casualties are at a minimum like on Street Cleaning day but sometimes I have every other Saturday off. Those Saturdays, like today, is when Station Management lets the current surviving interns handle the show.”

“Surviving interns?” 

Cecil nodded, “Oh yes, we’ve lost three just this week, I actually need to see if we have anymore applicants...”

“Anyway,” Carlos interjected, hoping to draw his family away from the subject, “Um, Maria! How is school going? You finally pick a major?”

“Huh? Oh yeah,” Maria said, “Communication with a minor in creative writing. I think it’ll be a good fit for me.”

“Good, I’m glad. Lucinda, Jacob tell me how school went this year,”

The conversation continued until only Cecil, Carlos, Alex and Maria remained in the living room, everyone else having left for bed. 

“Wait, wait,” Alex gestured wildly as she looked at her brother with wide eyes. “Are you honestly telling me that there is like no homophobia or racism or sexism or anything?”

“No, none at all,” Carlos assured. “It might be a bit more deadly here but it is so much nicer than the outside world in that respect.”

“So, no one in this whole town would care that I’m a transgender pansexual?” Alex wondered.

“Or that I’m bisexual?” Maria added in.

“No one cares that I’m gay or that Cecil is and if they did have a problem with it, then they are quiet about it. The only time I have seen any form of racism in Night Vale in the last three years was the Apache-” 

“Ugh, are you talking about the Apache Tracker?” Cecil plopped onto the sofa after coming back in from the kitchen with a mild look of disgust. “The only good thing he ever did was save you from the miniature underground city.”

“Um…” Carlos avoided the raised eyebrows and intense gazes of his sisters. “Time for bed?”

“Yeah, okay, Carlito. I’ll make sure to bring that up around Mama in the morning.” Maria hopped up from the sofa, stretching. She ruffled Carlos’s hair and kissed Cecil on the cheek. “Buenos noches, hermanos.”

“Night, Maria,” Carlos called after her. Alex sighed and pushed herself up from the couch.

“Better go too, it’s been a pretty long day and I’m going have to claim the right side of the bed first. See you two in the morning.”

“Goodnight,” the couple said in unison as Alex followed Maria up the stairs.

“Did I mention that I really like your family?” Cecil asked.

“You have mentioned it, yes. Come on, honey, let go to bed. I think we are in for a much louder morning than we have become accustom to.”

“Apart from the screaming sunrise of course,”

“Of course.”


	5. Morning kisses, Breakfast, and Adventure Plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention that Triptych broke me a little... 
> 
> Oh, and I'm gonna start an RP blog for Maria because I have plans for her after this story is done and they are gonna fantastic. I will alert you once that is set up if that's a thing you might like to look at.

The screaming that woke Cecil up the next morning was a mixture of the sun rising and also because Isabelle was yelling about something downstairs. Carlos remained asleep as was normal even though he normally woke up far earlier than Cecil.

“Isa, shut up already! It’s too fucking early for yelling! ” Cecil heard Alex yell from, presumably the door of the room next door. 

“You shut up, Alex!” Isabelle shouted back.

“Both of you be quiet!” 

“Siento, Mama!”

“Cec, sweetheart,” Carlos grumbled into his pillow, “Did we accidentally go back in time fourteen years and I’m twenty years old and still living with my parents?”

Cecil smiled sleepily and pecked Carlos’s lips, “Time travel can only happen on the third Tuesday of March if it’s a full moon, silly, so no.”

“Right, of course.” Carlos wiped the sleep from his eyes, but still remained comfortably snuggled under the blanket next to Cecil. “When are you going into the station today?”

“Probably around 3:30 unless I get a call to go in earlier.”

Carlos made an affirming sort of noise at the back of his throat, focusing more on the kisses he was placing on Cecil’s neck, collar bone, and shoulder. 

“Carlos, your family is here…” Cecil whined. He bit off a groan as Carlos’s teeth scraped across that spot where his neck and shoulder met. “We can’t.”

“We can, but only if you manage to be quiet.” Carlos teased, pulling Cecil on top of him.

“You are just as loud as me and you know it,” 

Their lips slid to together with practiced ease. Cecil’s hand’s tangling into Carlos’s hair at the same time that Carlos wrapped an arm around Cecil’s waist.

“I love you,” Cecil murmured, their foreheads press together.

“I love you too,” Carlos responded, leaning up just enough to kiss Cecil again.

“Hey, Carlos, you guys-” the bedroom door opened, followed by Isabelle’s surprised squeak. “Oh, shit sorry!”

“What is it, Isa?” Carlos asked with an exasperated sigh.

“Breakfast. The kids want breakfast and we aren’t actually sure what’s safe to eat and Lucinda wants toast but there isn’t any bread and just come down and help please?”

“Yeah, we’ll be right down.”

“Muchos Gracias,” 

Isabelle quickly shut the door, leaving a giggling Cecil and an annoyed Carlos, who was mumbling in Spanish under his breath.

“Darling Carlos, want to translate for me, please? I took Ancient Sumerian in high school remember.”

“I think I could scientifically prove that all three of my sisters have a ‘my brother is about to have physical romantic interactions and I must interrupt’ radar.”

Cecil snorted and kissed him again before rolling off of him, “Come on, you’ll feel better once you have coffee. Hopefully if they already turned it on, it hasn’t bitten anyone or sucked someone into the Void.”

As it turned out, neither had happened. Cecil was busy helping Isabelle and Lukas figure out the breakfast situation. Maria and Carlos were both at the table, sitting close together, nursing cups of coffee, glasses perched at the ends of their noses with equally ruffled hair (this was a very important thing to make note of in Cecil’s mind).

“Mom, why is my milk orange?” Jacob asked for maybe the third time since the glass was put in front of him.

“Just drink it, dear. You might like it.” Rosa said as she walked back into the room.

“The stove is letting me make eggs if you’d like some.” Cecil stated brightly, waving the obnoxiously orange spatula in the air, wearing his ‘Kiss the Scientist’ apron. 

“I’d love some,”

“Tio Carlos, are we going to go do stuff today?” Lucinda asked.

“Um, maybe? I mean, Cec and I can take you guys on a tour of town or something if you want?”

“That sounds like fun,” Maria yawned out.

“It does.” Rosa agreed, “We can go after your father and Alex get up and eat.”

“Yay!” Cecil cheered. “I can’t wait to show you all around! We can go to Mission Grove Park and the Zoo and the Museum of Forbidden Technologies and the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, oh and we can go to Big Rico’s for lunch! Oh this is going to be so much fun!”


	6. Day One Comes to a Close

When the Ramirez family arrived back at the house they started at, it was minus one radio host and plus two excited but tired eight year olds, small gaggle of adults ranging from confused to ponderous and many emotions between, and a thoroughly exhausted scientist.

“Hey, go take a nap,” Isabelle told Carlos, pushing him a little towards the sofa. “We’ll get you up in an hour okay?”

“I’m fine, Izzy. Plus, I have to do…something” Carlos gestured wildly, hoping that the movement would make his brain remember.

“Duerme ahora, hijo,” Miguel said, “Una hora no puede hacer dano”

“Si, Papa, estas bien.”

“Of course I’m right. Cecil showed us how to work the kitchen well enough, we’ll handle dinner and make sure the kids stay quiet.”

Carlos woke up on the couch, covered in a blanket Old Woman Josie had made them. He wasn’t sure how long he had been asleep but he could hear Cecil’s voice coming from the radio and quiet chatter from the kitchen.

“Hey, bro, we were just going to wake you up,” Alex peered over the back of couch. “Ma made rice and black beans for dinner. Cecil’s show has been on for a bit. He talked about us for like twenty minutes, it was pretty cute.”

“Sounds like him,” Carlos said fondly. “He waxed poetic about my hair and declared that he fell in love with me instantly on air the first day I was in town.”

“Well, Ramirez family hair is pretty fantastic,” Alex fluffed her own hair a bit with a grin. “Mom put your plate in what are pretty sure is the microwave, come get it when you’re ready.”

“Okay, I’ll be right there.”

It was 11pm when Cecil walked through the front door, only to be greeted by the sight of Maria, Alex, Lukas, Isabelle and Carlos all seated on the floor around the coffee table playing Monopoly.

“Hey, babe,” Carlos grinned at him before looking at the board, “That will be 11 million, Maria.”

“Let me live my fucking life, Carlos, for fuck’s sake.” Maria angrily handed over the plastic credit card over to Lukas who was acting as banker.

“There are leftover’s in the fridge if you want some Cecil,” Isabelle said.

“I think I’d rather just go to bed be honest, but I’ll take some tomorrow.”

Cecil sunk down onto the sofa, glad that Carlos had claimed a seat in front of it so he could idly play with his hair while he watched the game.

“Your show was very… interesting, Cecil.” Lukas commented as he moved his piece.

“I really liked the weather,” Alex handed her card over to collect the 2 million from Lukas seeing as he had landed on one of her railroads.

“It was a bit of slow day really, we lost Intern Jason to turtles but that’s really about it.

“Oh, that’s too bad. You said he was the only one who got your coffee just right,” Carlos sounded sympathetic.

“I know! Now we are only down to two and Station Management always starts flailing and howling when we get low on them.”

Carlos hummed, ignoring the rather shocked looks from everyone else, “My turn?”


	7. An Ending and a Beginning

It seemed like no time had passed all (it possibly hadn’t) when the morning arrived when Carlos’s family would be leaving again.

The week had been interesting. Bees invaded briefly on Tuesday. Carlos announced that trees are in fact real on Thursday but only because Wednesday was cancelled again.

Friday, however, was absolute chaos.

There was the general chaos of packing up all the belonging that had been brought as to make car loading the next morning easier, but no one expected the letter.

“Are you sure it’s for me?”

“It says ‘Maria Bianca Ramirez’ right there,” 

“Yeah, but are you really going trust anything that looks like it was written in blood?”

“I say we burn the thing,”

“Probably not the best idea, who knows what could happen,”

“Why is everyone standing around?”

Cecil’s voice made the family jump slightly, the radio host looked at the counter and beamed.

"Oh, is that for me? Did Station Management send me the new intern’s information?”

“Actually, it’s for me,” Maria paused for a second. “Does that mean I got the internship?”

The whole house seemed to go quiet baring the sounds of the TV in the living room that Lucinda and Jacob were watching and the wailing from the attic.

“Maria, please explain,” Rosa sighed out, taking a seat at the kitchen table.

“I looked what I’m pretty sure was the radio station website and I applied on a whim? I mean, I didn’t really think putting my resume and an essay under the nearest house plant would work at all but I guess it did?” Maria looked a bit sheepish between her family.

“Dios mio, Maria,” Miguel sighed with a weary glance to his youngest child.

Carlos looked desperately at Cecil, “Please tell me she can back out of this, Cecil.”

“Um… She can back out if it.” Cecil said clearly lying, making Carlos groan loudly.

“I put in my essay that it would only be for the summer to get a few credits for school? If that helps?”

“Oh yeah, Management always lets the college students go once school get backs in swing. Education is very important after all. You’ll just have to do a complicated interpretive dance in front of their office door a week before you have to leave.”

“Okay then.” Maria’s eyebrows would have been at her hair line if that were possible. “It’s okay if I stay here right? I promise I’ll clean up and cook and you won’t even know I’m here really.”

“I highly doubt that but, yeah, of course you can.” Carlos looked at Cecil, “So long as you are fine with it, babe.”

“Why wouldn’t I be? We’d love to have you! It’ll be fun!”

“Guess we’ll have to change the bag arrangement again, because now I have to ride with Mama and Papa,” Alex only slightly grumbled.

“And you’ll enjoy it, Alex.” Rosa stated.

The next morning was pretty quiet, they loaded the now two cars, somehow making everything fit. 

“We’ll miss you at home, Maria, but I know you’ll have fun. Try and learn a bit and be good for your brother and listen to Cecil when you are at the radio station and don’t get in to too much trouble and-”

“Mama, por favor,” Maria whined fondly, “I’ll be fine.” 

“You had better be, and you’ll call once a week, right?”

“Yes, we will,” Carlos said, “Better get going if you want to make it home by tomorrow night,”

Rosa smiled and hugged her children tightly. “I love you both so much,”

“Love you too, Ma,”

“Stop worrying over the kids, Rosa, we have to go,” Miguel called from the car.

“Hold on you old goat,” Rosa called back. “Cecil, you take care of my babies for me, okay?”

“Yes, Mama, I will,” Cecil gratefully hugged her before she smiled and walked off to the car.

The trip waved the cars off from the porch until the cars were no longer visible.

“I’m going to go do some laundry,” Maria said, heading back inside.

“Cecil,” Carlos said after moment.

“Yes, darling imperfect Carlos?”

“I might honestly consider breaking up with you if this internship gets my baby sister killed,”

“Noted.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As much as I would have loved to write a weeks worth of adventures for these beautiful characters, I'm really not that creative.
> 
> BUT! Maria gets to stay! And I'm gonna write about her Internship adventures! And I'm gonna set up an RP blog for her, (I'll provide a link with the first chapter of Maria's adventures).
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! You all are wonderful <3


End file.
